This day in history: Coroner’s jury cleared officer who shot teen. Attorney representing accused safecracker suggests inside job

From 1975: A coroner’s jury gave its verdict in the police shooting of Craig S. Jordan, 17: “No criminal liability” for the officer who shot him.

“Immediately after the verdict was read, about three-quarters of the people in the room – many of them black youths – walked out and milled about the outer corridor,” said The Spokesman-Review.

County Prosecutor Don Brockett said the jury’s “decision is not binding.” He said he still has “statutory obligation to consider what has been developed at this inquest and to make an investigation as to whether Officer (John) Moore is to be charged with a crime.”

Brockett also revealed several details that had been withheld from the jury because they were “not relevant.” Jordan, a Lewis and Clark High School student, had been arrested three times for burglary and had “admitted to over 75 house burglaries.” Brockett said Jordan had broken into the house where he had been shot two weeks earlier “but someone scared him away.”

From 1925: The defense attorney in the sensational Isadore (Izzy) Edelstein safecracking trial was clearly trying to imply that the Paulsen Building burglaries were an “inside job.”

He got the manager to admit on cross-examination that he had required every employee to submit their fingerprints to the police. He also got the manager to admit that the only safes and vaults that were burglarized were the ones where “combinations were known by the management of the building.”

Also on this day

(From onthisday.com)

1941: Germany and Italy declare war against United States.